Shadow Play (40 page)

"But you can't!" she cried to Teobaldo.

"If we wait any longer we jeopardize our ability to escape King," a man said.

"Leave!" someone shouted, and a chorus joined in.

She ran to Morgan's cabin and retrieved her rifle, re- turning just as Teobaldo gave the order to start the engines.

"I'll shoot the first man who moves," she yelled.

The men's faces appeared stunned at first, then amused. Several laughed, but others looked grim and angry.

"We're not going to let a woman ruin our chances of escape!" announced the
caboclo
with the scarred face.

"I'm warning you, I'll shoot. If you think I'm afraid of killing you, you're mistaken."

"I am afraid of no woman!" the
caboclo
shouted, and as he moved toward her she turned her rifle on him and pulled the trigger. The shot echoed against the floresta walls, and the man fell to the deck, clutching his bloodied shoulder.

The others backed away, their faces slack with surprise.

Kan and his companions burst from the forest in that moment, and though Sarah didn't show her obvious relief before the others, her body inwardly shook with it. It was all she could do to continue to hold the rifle up as Kan ran up the gangplank, waving his bag of cinchona for all to see. Only when he had disappeared below deck did she lower the rifle and follow him. Reaching the cabin behind Kan, she slammed the door and sank against it. "Oh, God, what have I become?" she said aloud. "I just shot a man and I'm glad I did it. I'm glad! I would shoot them all if it meant saving Morgan's life."

Stooping over Morgan and spilling his supply of cinchona onto the bed, Kan looked around and said, "I need boiling water.''

"Boiling water." She nodded and turned back for the door.

Within twelve hours the cinchona had taken effect; Morgan's fever diminished. Sarah fell asleep after dinner and didn't wake again until the new day was several hours old.

"Mornin', Sunshine," came his voice, rousing her from her sleepy state.

Shoving her hair from her face, she blinked at Morgan, unable to believe her eyes. His mouth curled in that half smile that made her heart turn over. "Morgan? Morgan, is it really you?" He nodded and she squealed as she ran to him, throwing herself against him where he lay, propped up on the bed. With her face buried against his chest, she wept like a child.

"Shh," he whispered.
"Chere,
I'm gonna be all right."

"I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry about everything, about coercing you to come here—and about Henry!"

He held her as tightly as his weakened condition would allow and stroked her hair. "You didn't coerce me into anything, love. I'm my own man. I made up my own mind.

I should've known Henry wouldn't leave Japura" without me."

Her eyes meeting his, she did her best to smile. "It's over, Morgan. Teobaldo says we're making good time and should reach Coari in another few days. Hopefully Sir Henry Wickham will be there waiting for us, and with his help we'll get out of Brazil and be in England in six weeks."

Resting his head back on the pillow, Morgan closed his eyes. After a moment he asked, "And what then, Sarah?" When she didn't reply, he gazed at her again. There was an abstracted look in her wide eyes, and he was seized by the realization that she was suddenly remembering all the reasons she had come to Japura in the first place.

Rage boiled up inside him. He turned his face away and wished the fever had killed him. Nothing had changed. She was engaged to another, and now that she had her seeds, the marriage could go on as planned.

She got off the bed, and despite his resolve to ignore her and the fact that his heart was breaking again, he turned his head and watched her pace the floor, wringing her hands. Once, he had viewed her as a forlorn and grief-stricken child. Now she was a woman whose experiences all these many weeks had added an edge of defiance to the corners of her lips and the set of her jaw. When her eyes came back to his, he saw that their naivete and innocence had been replaced with steely determination. Yet as she approached his bed, her face pale and her cheeks sunken, her hair a tangle of tawny curls, her resolution appeared to falter.

"Morgan." She took a breath. "You asked me to marry you..."

"And you turned me down."

"But I didn't. You caught me off guard and, well, there was a lot to consider. I am betrothed to Norman, you know. It's most likely that he's planned our wedding and—"

"Get to the point,
chere."

"I thought I was in love with Norman. I thought that what happened between you and me was only physical.

When you asked me to marry you, I was forced to confront my feelings and.

"And?"

She bit her lip and lowered her lashes. "Yes," she whispered.

"Yes, what?"

She frowned and, forced to meet his gaze again, said, "Yes. I will marry you if you still want me."

Upon reaching Tefe the next day, numerous men chose to leave the vessel, taking with them their share of the gold, while others declined to set foot on land, claiming the farther they could travel downriver the more likely they were to escape King for good.

The boat set out for Coari just after dark. Morgan had grown strong enough to leave his bunk and take a chair on the deck, where he sat until well after midnight each night. Although he had recovered remarkably well, he was still thin, and his skin, once so dark from the sun, had taken on a gray pallor that made him look sicker than he was. His hair, which had grown dry and brittle with the fever, was becoming soft and lustrous again. Sarah ached to run her fingers through it. In truth, she found herself growing eager for a chance to hold him, to reassure him that she wanted to be his wife. But she understood his silence, and his need to be alone. Her own grief over losing Henry was almost more than she could bear; she could only image what Morgan must be feeling.

She awoke sometime after midnight to hear thunder rumbling. The stillness was eerie, and she was glad she had taken to sleeping in her shirt, which reached only to her knees. Unable to get back to sleep, she left her bank and ventured to Morgan's cabin, to discover him gone. She found him on deck, sitting on the edge of his chair, his head in his hands and a cigarette burned down nearly to his knuckles, its ashes a tiny red torch in the black night. She watched him for some time as the darkness erupted in shimmering light and the wind whirled the smoke from his cigarette around his head. The first drops of rain hit her shoulders. She moved barefoot through the shadows and placed her hand against his hair. He looked up.

The rain came in that instant, a warm deluge that was driven onto them by the hot blast of wind that howled down the Amazon with a roar like the
Pororoca.
He reached for her, his wet hands roughly taking her arms and drawing her to him even as the white lightning rent the floresta with a crash and the pain inside him surfaced; his face twisted in despair and the tears came one last time, spilling down his cheeks.

Sarah gripped him close, burying her fingers in his hair, turning her face up to the rain, and weeping for his loss— and her own relief that Morgan was spared. Then they were sinking to the floor and he was kissing her throat and face and mouth, his passion tasting of salty tears. She said nothing as his desperate hands dragged up her shirt and gripped her breasts less than gently, then slid between her legs, his fingers moving inside her before fumbling with the buttons on his breeches. As she opened her legs he mounted

her, and she closed her legs high over his back, rising to meet his every fierce thrust while the rain beat into her eyes. Then his hands closed into the wet waves of her hair and forced her face around to his. He moved his lips down hard on hers, obliterating all reality.

Chapter Twenty

They arrived in Coari a few days later. Morgan wasted little time in collecting Sarah and the marmoset, and instructing Kan and Teobaldo that they could be located at the local hotel, a crude adobe with doorless cubicles connected by a common hallway down the middle of the building. Morgan rented a room for the night, and the proprietor awarded him with two mattresses and a length of material that they used to curtain off the doorway. It was even smaller than the cabin on the boat with dirt floors and walls. There was no window and the air was rank.

Morgan tossed the mattresses to the floor and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. "It ain't home, but it'll get us through the night. You stay here while I check around and see if I can find Wickham."

"I'd like to go with you," she told him.

"No chance, sweetheart. King's men could be here, and a woman like you won't blend in with the natives."

Smiling, she fell back on the mattress, spreading her hair like a fan. "Should I take that as a compliment?"

He tossed his match to the dirt and exhaled smoke through his lips. "What do you think?"

"I wonder sometimes. You seem to like my body well enough, but you don't say much about it."

"So I'm a man of few words."

"But a lot of action."

"You don't like it?"

"I like it very much. In fact, I would like it even more if you came down here and made passionate love to me right now."

"You're a hot one, aren't you,
chere?"

"You made me that way. You'll have to live with the consequences."

"Later. I'll be back in a hour and then..."

"Then what?" When he didn't respond, she looked to- ward the door and found him gone.

Morgan milled about the streets, noting there were numerous whites drinking and whoring among the Indians, and that they sounded English. Which meant there was an English supply boat in dock.

A street of saloons ran near the piers. He began his search in the first he came to, wasting little time in ordering a bottle of cheap whiskey. As he drank, finding respite in the coolness of the dark room, he searched out an isolated Indian and made his way through the boisterous Englishmen and inebriated
seringueros
from bordering plantations. The Indian, swaying in his chair, looked up in surprise as Morgan poured him another glass of whiskey and set it before him. Then he kicked back a chair and dropped into it.

"Do you speak English?" he asked.

The Indian nodded and grabbed the glass, turning it up to his mouth and gulping it. Morgan refilled it. "I'm looking for an Englishman."

The Indian grunted and motioned toward the sailors.

"This man might have been here many weeks. His name is Wickham. Have you see him?"

The Indian nodded and drank again.

"Can you tell me where he is?"

He shook his head, but before Morgan could pour him another drink, he fell facedown on the table and passed out.

For the next hours Morgan made his way through the noisy dens, at last finding a bartender who knew Wickham and explained that he came into the saloon early in the
day, before the clientele became too rowdy. However, he didn't know where the Englishman stayed.

"Tell him when you see him that his old friend from Georgetown is at the Anaconda Hotel," Morgan instructed the swarthy-faced bartender.

On his way out, he tripped over a man who had fallen into the dirt and was too drunk to get up again. The man's hat had spilled on the ground. Picking it up, Morgan studied it critically, noting it was similar to the one he had left back at King's place. He tried it on, finding that it fit well enough. Leaving it in place, he walked off down the street.

He happened by the bazaar near the docks that was on the verge of closing for the night. Since the Indians were eager for one last sale, he managed to strike a few bargains, which included a knife much like the one he'd lost to King, a sheath in which to strap it to his hip, a pair of white breeches, and a vest made of snake hide. There were women's things as well, which he bought for Sarah. He paid for the purchases in gold, then headed for the public bath.

By the time he returned to the hotel, the hour had grown late. A number of sailors had made their way back to their accommodations, and by the sounds of their racket, they had brought with them the Indian women they had picked up in the saloons.

He was eager to see Sarah. He was proud of her. Damn proud. She had grown strong and resilient. That gave him some peace of mind. They were not out of danger yet— not with King stalking him. She might face the toughest challenge of all very soon, because there was no way he was going to leave this country with the threat of King looming over them. He wouldn't allow her to live in fear,
as he had those months after first escaping Japurie. He would not permit King to stand in the way of her happiness. Be- sides, he was going to make King pay for killing Henry if it was the last thing he ever did.

He found Sarah pacing the room with her hands on her hips. At the sight of him, her countenance went from frantic to furious in the blink of an eye. "Damn you, Morgan, I've been out of my mind with worry! You said you'd be back in an hour; it's been nearly three."

"It turned out to be harder than I thought to find Wick- ham."

She paced again. "I've been terrified that something dreadful had happened, that perhaps King had found you and—"

"He didn't."

"But how was I to know? On top of that, these drunken heathens have been stumbling in and out of here until I was forced to take up my rifle and threaten to shoot them if they bothered me again."

Tossing the parcel into her arms, he grinned. "I don't blame them. They probably haven't seen a white woman in a long time. And they probably haven't
ever
seen a white woman who looks like you."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, sir."

"No?" He dug a cigarette from his pocket and slid it between his lips. "We'll see,
chere.
Now tell me what you mink of your present."

She dropped to the mattress and unrolled the clothing: a white peasant blouse and a full, multicolored skirt. There were wooden combs and leather sandals with straps that would crisscross up her calves. When she looked up at him again, her eyes were bright and she was smiling. "They're beautiful."